Can You Use Jira for Requirements Management?

If you’re using Jira to manage tasks and issues, you might be wondering… Why not use it to manage requirements, too?

The tool is already there. Developers and testers are already working in it every day. And Jira can be used for requirements management. It makes sense — at least up front.

How to Manage Requirements in Jira

It will take a few manual steps to manage requirements in Jira. But, it can be done. Here’s how.

1. Create a Jira Issue Type For Requirements

This will be your requirements document. It’s where you’ll store your requirements and manage them on a daily basis.

2. Use Sub-Tasks to Add and Manage Requirements

This is how you’ll add and modify requirements throughout development.

3. Link Jira Issues

Jira allows you to link issues. So, you can use this linking to connect related requirements to each other. And you can use it to link other Jira issues (e.g., bugs) to requirements.

4. Mark Requirements as Done

When a requirement is met (and related issues have been resolved), you can mark it as “done” in Jira.

Problems With Jira Requirements Management

You can make Jira requirements management work. But it will take work to create and maintain requirements in Jira. And that can create some problems…

Tracking Requirements Will Be Your Full-Time Job

You can add requirements pretty easily. But it’s difficult to keep track of them. How many do you have? How many are in progress versus completed?

It’s especially difficult to track requirements in Jira after they’ve been completed. After all, it's a task management tool, not a requirements management tool. Once a requirement is completed, it’s taken off the backlog — and out of sight.

Trying to find those completed requirements can easily become a full-time job. And tracking down requirements isn’t the only thing you need to do in a day.

You’ll Struggle to Share Requirements

Jira might not be the only place you keep your requirements. You might route your requirements for review and approval in a document (e.g., Microsoft Word).

This can lead to extra work transferring requirements between a document and Jira. And it’s hard to keep everyone on the same page when there isn’t a single source of truth.

Reusing Requirements Is Nearly Impossible

Reusing requirements is often a best practice in requirements management. But Jira makes it challenging to reuse requirements from one project to the next.

It will take almost as much manual effort to track down a requirement to reuse as it will to simply add the requirement from scratch.

Requirements Change (and You Won’t Know the Impact)

Requirements are rarely set in stone. Sometimes they need to be shifted. Or sometimes they may need to change entirely.

And when a requirement changes, that’s not the only item impacted. If you’ve already written a test case for that requirement, that test case will need to change, too. (And so will any issues that have been detected that are related to that requirement.)

But if there aren’t links between the requirement, its test cases, and its issues, it will be hard to know the impact of changing that requirement.

You Can’t Be Agile and Maintain Documentation in Jira

Agile development is an iterative process. Requirements aren’t defined up front in a giant spec document, like they are in traditional development. But many teams — especially those work in regulated industries — still need their requirements documented.

Therein lies the problem with using Jira requirements management. You can’t be Agile and maintain documentation with Jira alone.

When the requirements of existing features aren’t readily available, it can be challenging to add new functionality or fix bugs without breaking those features. And it can be difficult for QA teams to perform regression tests after features have been implemented.

Nico Krüger

Chief Technology Officer, Helix ALM, Perforce Software

Nico Krüger is CTO for Helix ALM. He specializes in technical guidance and product development efficiency for global organizations. An expert in software development, he is dedicated to helping customers drive quality product strategy.